Matomo Analytics
for CS-Cart & Multi-Vendor
Own your data. Stop feeding your customers' behavior to Google. The Matomo Analytics Add-On brings full ecommerce tracking — orders, revenue, visitors, conversions — directly into CS-Cart, hosted on your server, under your control.
01 Why Matomo — and why it beats the alternative
Every time a visitor lands on your store and Google Analytics fires, you are handing a competitor's advertising platform a detailed map of your customers. Matomo is the open-source alternative: the same depth of insight, none of the data leakage.
Matomo runs on your own server — or Matomo Cloud with EU data residency. No third party ever touches your visitor data. Not Google. Not Meta. No one.
Google Analytics samples data above certain thresholds. Matomo processes every single visit, every order, every event. Your reports reflect reality — not a statistical estimate of it.
Self-hosted Matomo can operate without cookies and without consent banners in many EU jurisdictions. Stop paying for consent management tools just to run basic analytics.
Watch orders arrive, track active visitors, and monitor your conversion funnel live — without waiting 24-48 hours for Google to process your data.
Orders, revenue, items, average order value, abandoned carts, conversion rates — all tracked automatically. CS-Cart fires the right Matomo events at every step of the purchase journey.
Enter your Matomo URL and Site ID in the add-on settings and you're live. No JavaScript customization, no tag manager setup, no developer needed.
02 What the add-on tracks
The add-on injects Matomo's tracking code across your entire CS-Cart storefront and fires dedicated ecommerce events at the right moments — automatically, without any manual configuration.
trackEcommerceOrder on the order confirmation page with order ID, total revenue, subtotal, shipping, tax, and discount.addEcommerceItem and trackEcommerceCartUpdate events as customers add and remove products — enabling abandoned cart analysis.03 Matomo vs. Google Analytics 4
If you're migrating from GA4 or evaluating alternatives, here's what matters for an ecommerce store.
| Feature | Google Analytics 4 | Matomo + This Add-On |
|---|---|---|
| Data ownership | ✗ Google's servers | ✓ Your server |
| GDPR — no consent needed (self-hosted) | ✗ Requires consent banner | ✓ Possible without consent |
| Data sampling | ✗ Yes, above thresholds | ✓ Never — 100% data |
| Real-time ecommerce data | Delayed (up to 48h) | ✓ Real-time |
| Ecommerce order tracking | Manual GTM setup needed | ✓ Automatic via add-on |
| Cart abandonment tracking | Requires custom events | ✓ Built-in |
| Data shared with ad platforms | ✗ Yes — feeds Google Ads | ✓ Never |
| Works without 3rd-party cookies | Partial (GA4 modeling) | ✓ Cookie-less mode |
| Data retention — unlimited | ✗ 14 months max (free) | ✓ Unlimited on self-hosted |
| Open source | ✗ Proprietary | ✓ GPL licensed |
04 Requirements
| Requirement | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| CS-Cart version | 4.x | Tested on CS-Cart 4.13 through 4.20.x |
| Supported editions | CS-Cart, Ultimate, Multi-Vendor | Works identically on all editions |
| Matomo version | 4.x, 5.x | Self-hosted Matomo (free) or Matomo Cloud |
| Matomo site ID | Required | Found in Matomo → Administration → Websites → Manage |
| Matomo URL | Required | Your Matomo instance URL, e.g. https://analytics.yourstore.com |
| Core file edits | None | Hook-based only — upgrade-safe by design |
05 Installation & setup
Purchase and download
Get the Matomo Analytics Add-On from the CS-Cart Marketplace and download the .zip archive to your computer.
Install via Admin Panel
In your CS-Cart admin go to Add-ons → Manage Add-ons → +, select the downloaded .zip and click Upload & Install. The add-on activates immediately.
Enter your Matomo URL
Go to Add-ons → Manage Add-ons → Matomo Analytics → Settings and enter the full URL of your Matomo instance — e.g. https://analytics.yourstore.com.
Enter your Site ID
In Matomo go to Administration → Websites → Manage and copy the Site ID for your store. Paste it into the add-on settings. Each storefront in a Multi-Vendor setup can have its own Site ID.
Save & verify
Click Save. Visit your storefront, then check Matomo's Real-time visitor log — your visit should appear within seconds. Tracking is live.
06 Settings
All settings at Add-ons → Manage Add-ons → Matomo Analytics → Settings.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Matomo URL | — | Full URL of your Matomo instance including protocol. Example: https://analytics.yourstore.com. No trailing slash required. |
| Site ID | — | The numeric Site ID assigned to your store in Matomo. Found under Administration → Websites → Manage. |
| Track ecommerce orders | Yes | Enables automatic trackEcommerceOrder events on the order confirmation page with full order value, items, and revenue data. |
| Track cart updates | Yes | Fires cart update events when customers add or remove items — required for cart abandonment analysis in Matomo. |
| Cookie-less tracking | No | Disables Matomo's tracking cookies. Visitors are tracked via fingerprinting only. Useful for cookie-consent-free operation in certain EU contexts — consult your legal team. |
| Track admin panel | No | When enabled, admin panel activity is also tracked. Disabled by default to keep analytics clean of internal traffic. |
| Respect Do Not Track | Yes | Honors the browser's DNT header. Recommended for GDPR compliance. |
07 Ecommerce tracking — what you see in Matomo
Once the add-on is installed and configured, your Matomo ecommerce reports populate automatically. Here's what becomes available in your Matomo dashboard without any additional setup.
08 GDPR & privacy compliance
Privacy compliance is not an add-on feature — it's the entire point of choosing Matomo. Here's how the add-on supports your compliance obligations.
| Compliance aspect | How it works |
|---|---|
| Data residency | All analytics data is stored on your own server (self-hosted) or Matomo Cloud's EU region. No data ever flows to Google, Meta, or US-based infrastructure. |
| IP anonymization | Matomo anonymizes visitor IP addresses by default. The last two octets are masked before storage — visitor IPs are never stored in full. |
| Cookie-less tracking | Enable the cookie-less tracking setting to operate without any tracking cookies. In many EU jurisdictions this removes the need for a consent banner entirely — verify with your legal counsel. |
| Do Not Track | The add-on honors the browser's DNT signal by default. Visitors who have enabled DNT are not tracked. |
| Data deletion | You control data retention in Matomo — set automatic deletion periods or remove specific visitors on request to fulfill GDPR right-to-erasure obligations. |
| No data sharing | Matomo does not share data with advertising networks, data brokers, or any third party. Your customer behavior data feeds your analytics — nothing else. |
09 Multi-Vendor support
The add-on works identically on CS-Cart Multi-Vendor. Visitor tracking and ecommerce events are captured across all vendor storefronts without any additional configuration.
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Single Matomo instance | All storefronts can report to a single Matomo site — giving you a unified view of your marketplace's total traffic and revenue. |
| Per-storefront tracking | Alternatively, assign a different Site ID per vendor storefront to analyze each vendor's traffic and sales in isolation within Matomo. |
| Order tracking | Orders from all vendors are tracked through the standard CS-Cart order confirmation hook — no per-vendor configuration needed. |
| Vendor admin access | Analytics configuration is handled from the root CS-Cart admin. Individual vendors do not have access to the Matomo settings. |
Stop sharing your customers with Google.
Full ecommerce analytics on your server — live in minutes, GDPR compliant from day one.
10 Use cases
Replacing Google Analytics with full data ownership
Install the add-on, enter your Matomo credentials, and disable Google Analytics on your store. Your customer data stays on your infrastructure permanently. You retain full history — not the 14-month cap Google imposes on free accounts. Reports that previously required GA4 exploration become standard Matomo dashboard views.
Identifying your best-converting traffic sources
Matomo's acquisition reports segment revenue by channel — organic search, direct, referral, email, paid. Unlike GA4, these reports are based on 100% of your sessions, not sampled estimates. Pair this with Matomo's campaign URL builder to track the exact ROI of every email or ad campaign you run.
Finding checkout drop-off points
Set up a Matomo goal funnel with steps matching your CS-Cart checkout flow: Cart → Address → Shipping → Payment → Confirmation. The funnel report shows exactly which step loses the most customers — giving you a prioritized list of where to focus your CRO efforts.
Operating cookie-free in the EU
Enable Cookie-less tracking in the add-on settings and configure Matomo's cookie-less mode on the server side. For self-hosted Matomo tracking your own domain's visitors, many EU data protection authorities consider this setup exempt from cookie consent requirements. Remove your analytics consent banner and stop losing 20-40% of tracked visitors to consent rejection.
Multi-vendor marketplace analytics
Use a single Matomo site for your entire marketplace to benchmark total platform performance, or assign individual Site IDs per storefront to give each brand a clean analytics view. Revenue attribution works out of the box — each completed order fires the full Matomo ecommerce event with correct revenue figures regardless of which vendor fulfilled it.